The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (93 page)

The Adventures of Sally (1920) ch. 10

It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance

and a ray of sunshine.

Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (1935) "The Custody of the Pumpkin"

At this point in the proceedings there was another ring at the front door.

Jeeves shimmered out and came back with a telegram.

Carry On, Jeeves! (1925) "Jeeves Takes Charge"

He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if

not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled, so I tactfully

changed the subject.

The Code of the Woosters (1938) ch. 1

Slice him where you like, a hellhound is always a hellhound.

The Code of the Woosters (1938) ch. 1

It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the

core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof.

The Code of the Woosters (1938) ch. 2

Roderick Spode? Big chap with a small moustache and the sort of eye that

can open an oyster at sixty paces?

The Code of the Woosters (1938) ch. 2

To my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and

encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.

The Heart of a Goof (1926) dedication

The lunches of fifty-seven years had caused his chest to slip down into

the mezzanine floor.

The Heart of a Goof (1926) "Chester Forgets Himself"

I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one

who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in

the small of the back.

The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) ch. 4

Sir Roderick Glossop, Honoria's father, is always called a nerve

specialist, because it sounds better, but everybody knows that he's really

a sort of janitor to the looney-bin.

The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) ch. 7

As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions

when Aunt is calling to Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval

swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is

being shot round the family circle ("Please read this carefully and send

it on to Jane"), the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It's one of the

advantages I get from being a bachelor--and, according to my nearest and

dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that.

The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) ch. 16

It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in

advance of medical thought.

The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) ch. 16

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do

not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

The Man Upstairs (1914) title story

She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by

someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that

season.

My Man Jeeves (1919) "Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest"

What with excellent browsing and sluicing and cheery conversation and

what-not, the afternoon passed quite happily.

My Man Jeeves (1919) "Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest"

"What ho!" I said.

"What ho!" said Motty.

"What ho! What ho!"

"What ho! What ho! What ho!"

After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.

My Man Jeeves (1919) "Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest"

I spent the afternoon musing on Life. If you come to think of it, what

a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see

what I mean.

My Man Jeeves (1919) "Rallying Round Old George"

Ice formed on the butler's upper slopes.

Pigs Have Wings (1952) ch. 5

The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured

into his clothes and had forgotten to say "When!."

Very Good, Jeeves (1930) "Jeeves and the Impending Doom"

23.66 Humbert Wolfe =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1886-1940

You cannot hope

to bribe or twist,

thank God! the

British journalist.

But, seeing what

the man will do

unbribed, there's

no occasion to.

The Uncelestial City (1930) "Over the Fire"

23.67 Thomas Wolfe =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1900-1938

Most of the time we think we're sick, it's all in the mind.

Look Homeward, Angel (1929) pt. 1, ch. 1

"Where they got you stationed now, Luke?" said Harry Tugman peering up

snoutily from a mug of coffee. "At the p-p-p-present time in Norfolk at

the Navy base," Luke answered, "m-m-making the world safe for hypocrisy."

Look Homeward, Angel (1929) pt. 3, ch. 36

You can't go home again.

Title of novel (1940)

23.68 Tom Wolfe =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1931-

The bonfire of the vanities.

Title of novel (1987)

23.69 Woodbine Willie =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

See G. A. Studdert Kennedy (19.130)

23.70 Lt.-Commander Thomas Woodroofe =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1899-1978

At the present moment, the whole Fleet's lit up. When I say "lit up,"

I mean lit up by fairy lamps.

Radio broadcast, 20 May 1937

23.71 Harry Woods =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Oh we ain't got a barrel of money,

Maybe we're ragged and funny,

But we'll travel along

Singin' a song,

Side by side.

Side by Side (1927 song)

When the red, red, robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along.

Title of song (1926)

23.72 Virginia Woolf =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1882-1941

Righteous indignation. is misplaced if we agree with the lady's maid that

high birth is a form of congenital insanity, that the sufferer merely

inherits diseases of his ancestors, and endures them, for the most part

very stoically, in one of those comfortably padded lunatic asylums which

are known, euphemistically, as the stately homes of England.

The Common Reader (1925) "Lady Dorothy Nevill." Cf. Oxford Dictionary of

Quotations (1979) 244:21

We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the

eternity of print.

The Common Reader (1925) "The Modern Essay"

Each had his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by

heart; and his friends could only read the title.

Jacob's Room (1922) ch. 5

Never did I read such tosh [as James Joyce's Ulysses]. As for the first

two chapters we will let them pass, but the 3rd 4th 5th 6th--merely the

scratching of pimples on the body of the bootboy at Claridges.

Letter to Lytton Strachey, 24 Apr. 1922, in Letters (1976) vol. 2, p. 551

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

A Room of One's Own (1929) ch. 1

Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the

magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its

natural size.

A Room of One's Own (1929) ch. 2

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond

reason the opinions of others.

A Room of One's Own (1929) ch. 3

So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman looking at a girl

throwing a ball.

To the Lighthouse (1927) pt. 1, ch. 13

Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost

friends, some by death--Percival--others through sheer inability to cross

the street.

The Waves (1931) p. 202

23.73 Alexander Woollcott =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1887-1943

A broker is a man who takes your fortune and runs it into a shoestring.

In Samuel Hopkins Adams Alexander Woollcott (1945) ch. 15

I have no need of your God-damned sympathy. I only wish to be entertained

by some of your grosser reminiscences.

Letter to Rex O'Malley, 1942, in Samuel Hopkins Adams Alexander Woollcott

(1945) ch. 34

She [Dorothy Parker] is so odd a blend of Little Nell and Lady Macbeth.

It is not so much the familiar phenomenon of a hand of steel in a velvet

glove as a lacy sleeve with a bottle of vitriol concealed in its folds.

While Rome Burns (1934) "Our Mrs Parker"

All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or

fattening.

In R. E. Drennan Wit's End (1973)

23.74 Frank Lloyd Wright =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1867-1959

The necessities were going by default to save the luxuries until I hardly

knew which were necessities and which luxuries.

Autobiography (1945) bk. 2, p. 108

The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his

client to plant vines--so they should go as far as possible from home to

build their first buildings.

New York Times 4 Oct. 1953, sec. 6, p. 47

23.75 Woodrow Wyatt (Baron Wyatt) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1919-

A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears.

To the Point (1981) p. 107

23.76 Laurie Wyman =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Left hand down a bit!

The Navy Lark (BBC radio series, 1959-77)

23.77 George Wyndham =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1863-1913

Over the construction of Dreadnoughts. What the people said was, "We want

eight, and we won't wait."

Speech in Wigan, 27 Mar. 1909, in The Times 29 Mar. 1909

23.78 Tammy Wynette (Wynette Pugh) and Billy Sherrill =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Tammy Wynette (Wynette Pugh) 1942-

Billy Sherrill

Stand by your man.

Title of song (1968)

24.0 Y =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

24.1 R. J. Yeatman =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1898-1968

See W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman (19.45)

24.2 W. B. Yeats =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1865-1939

I think it better that at times like these

We poets keep our mouths shut, for in truth

We have no gift to set a statesman right;

He's had enough of meddling who can please

A young girl in the indolence of her youth

Or an old man upon a winter's night.

"A Reason for Keeping Silent" in Edith Wharton (ed.) The Book of the

Homeless (1916) p. 45

We had fed the heart on fantasies,

The heart's grown brutal from the fare,

More substance in our enmities

Than in our love; Oh, honey-bees

Come build in the empty house of the stare.

The Cat and the Moon (1924) "Meditations in Time of Civil War 6: The

Stare's Nest by my Window"

Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,

Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;

Laugh, heart, again in the gray twilight;

Sigh, heart, again in the dew of morn.

The Celtic Twilight (1893) "Into the Twilight"

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book

And slowly read and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars

Murmur, a little sad, "From us fled Love.

He paced upon the mountains far above,

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars."

The Countess Kathleen (1892) "When You Are Old"

A pity beyond all telling,

Is hid in the heart of love.

The Countess Kathleen (1892) "The Pity of Love"

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

The Countess Kathleen (1892) "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with

ourselves, poetry.

Essays (1924) "Anima Hominis" sec. 5

Why, what could she have done being what she is?

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910) "No Second Troy"

The fascination of what's difficult

Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent

Spontaneous joy and natural content

Out of my heart.